FCC wants to assume your members don’t want to talk to you
Yesterday evening as I sat down to watch the first game of the Stanley Cup finals I noticed that CUNA sent out a head’s up about a set of proposals from the FCC that would further complicate how you communicate with your members. Consequently, with one eye on the TV, I read this proposal from the FCC which it issued on May 16th, in which it could act on as early as June 6th. While the game was much more entertaining I must painfully admit that the proposal is much more important to your credit union at least if you have the audacity to use this thing called the phone to reach out to your members.
First, it’s important to understand that the FCC has as its top priority facilitating the blocking of unwanted telemarketing phone calls. In fairness to the commission the volume of complaints it receives from consumers is staggering. In 2015, the Commission reaffirmed that voice service providers “may offer” consumers call blocking technology and in 2017 it again urged VSP’s to more aggressively use technology to block calls which they determined were unwanted. Now the FCC is issuing a proposed declaratory ruling to provide a safe harbor under which VSP’s may offer consumers programs to block calls appearing to be illegal through “call blocking programs” and blocking numbers not in a consumers list of approved contacts referred to as a white list.
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